Same-sex marriage has made its way to the West Coast: OLYMPIA, Wash. — Gov. Chris Gregoire has signed into law a bill that legalizes gay marriage in Washington state, making it the nation’s seventh to allow gay and lesbian couples to wed. It’s a historic moment, but same-sex couples can’t walk down the aisle just [...]

Ezra Klein notes that one of the items in the President’s new budget includes giving the U.S. Mint the authority to explore the use of cheaper metals in U.S. coinage. That’s a good thing, because we’re apparently losing money on at least two of them: The Mint’s primary cost driver is the price of metal, [...]

We can feel that we “know” athletes, entertainers, politicians, and others that we’ve followed, rooted for, or whatnot over a period of time and feel a genuine sense of loss when they’re gone.

House Republicans are now offering to extend the Payroll Tax Cut without offsetting spending cuts or tax increases, which has been the issue holding up an extension since December: Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) — Congressional Republicans are offering to drop their demand to finance a 10-month extension of the payroll tax cut with spending reductions, three [...]

Four years ago, Mitt Romney won the Michigan Republican Primary quite handily. It wasn’t really a surprise, of course, since Romney’s father had been Governor there back in the day and Michigan was considered as much “Romney Country” as Massachusetts was even though he hadn’t lived there in many years. According to a new poll [...]

My previous two posts on Greece reminded me of something I meant to comment upon the other day.  On Friday’s Morning Edition there was a story on the Greek crisis that had the following observation that struck me: Resolving this crisis has taken years, and there’s a reason: a debt crisis has never really been [...]

Also via the BBC:

Via the BBC:  Greek MPs pass austerity plan amid violent protests Greece’s parliament has passed a controversial package of austerity measures, demanded by the eurozone and IMF in return for a 130bn-euro ($170bn; £110bn) bailout to avoid default. [...] The austerity measures include: 15,000 public-sector job cuts liberalisation of labour laws lowering the minimum wage [...]

Buzzfeed’s Matt Stopera posts some Facebook updates from people who, for some reason, could not tell Oprah Winfrey and Whitney Houston apart. This one is may favorite: I’m really not sure what to say.

Newt Gingrich may soon find it very hard to compete against Mitt Romney, or even Rick Santorum, now that the man who was funding his SuperPAC with multimillion dollar donations has decided it’s time to close the checkbook: Newt Gingrich was just days away from the Jan. 31 Florida Republican presidential primary when he told [...]

I wholly agree with James Joyner’s statements earlier today about the general uselessness of any straw poll, including the one conducted annually at the Conservative Political Action Conference, which this year was won by Mitt Romney. Which is why I find Rick Santorum’s whining about the process rather amusing: A groggy Rick Santorum, donning suit [...]

While I’ve expressed my dissatisfaction with the degree that CPAC has embraced the worst elements of the conservative movement in recent years, it does appear that there is a line. ThinkProgress (“EXCLUSIVE: Conservative Board Unanimously Condemned Gaffney’s ‘Reprehensible’ And ‘Unfounded’ Attacks“):  A year ago, anti-Sharia conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney leaned against a column in the basement of [...]

Whitney Houston, once one of the biggest stars in American popular culture, has died.

Late yesterday, the nation’s Catholic Bishops came out with a statement that noted at least two strong objections to the revised contraceptive coverage plan unveiled yesterday by the White House: Hours after calling the Obama administration’s contraceptives compromise a “first step,” the Catholic bishops said Friday night they have “two serious objections” to the new [...]

Yesterday, rumors swept the Internet, primarily via Twitter, that the new leader of North Korea had been assassinated in Beijing: The claim that Kim, supreme leader of North Korea since the death of his father Kim Jong Il in December, had died apparently stemmed from a message sent out by a man who works near [...]

Via the AP:  US Marines posed with Nazi symbol in Afghanistan The Marine Corps on Thursday once again did damage control after a photograph surfaced of a sniper team in Afghanistan posing in front of a flag with a logo resembling that of the notorious Nazi SS — a special unit that murdered millions of [...]

Tony Manfred at Business Insider reports on some statistics from the NCAA on the likelihood that a college athlete will become a professional athlete: Even if your kid is good at sports in high school, gets a scholarship, and excels in college, there’s almost no way they are going to go pro. Scott Soshnick of [...]

French mothers do not have some magical formula for raising well behaved children.

There must not be any serious problems left for the Arizona State Legislature to worry about, because they are presently considering a bill that would bar teachers and professors from using bad language: In what has to be the most hilariously unconstitutional piece of legislation that I’ve seen in quite some time, senators in the [...]

ABC News’s Jake Tapper is reporting this morning that the Obama Administration will be offering a compromise of some form regarding its controversial new rule requiring employers to provide coverage for contraceptives to their employees: With the White House under fire for its new rule requiring employers including religious organizations to offer health insurance that [...]

William F. Buckley Jr. was once quoted as saying that he’d rather be ruled by the first 400 names in the Boston telephone directory than the faculty at Harvard. Apparently, most Americans feel the same way: The public’s perception of Congress has sunk to yet another new low, with 43 percent of likely voters believing [...]

“Do not try to out-geek the professor, either. He has been attending both Star Trek and Star Wars conventions since before you were born.”—Patrick Thaddeus Jackson.

Andrew Kaczynski at Buzzfeed uncovers this video from 2008 when Rick Santorum not only endorsed Mitt Romney, but campaigned with him: As conservatives gather here at CPAC, it’s a pretty good refection of how much things have changed in four years. Back then, Mitt Romney was the conservative hero fighting against John McCain and Mike [...]

Via the BBC:  Greece bailout: Coalition fails to agree cuts Greek PM Lucas Papademos has failed to secure the support of his coalition for a raft of new austerity measures, after more than seven hours of talks. [...] A statement issued by the prime minister’s office said the aim of the meeting with the troika [...]

Pretty low, it would seem. Via Gallup:  Congress’ Job Approval at New Low of 10%

Jonathan Chait begins a column titled “Why I’m So Mean” thusly: People often ask, “Why is Jonathan Chait so mean?” It is a fair question, one that has been raised by my close friends, colleagues, wife, and parents, and it merits a suitably thoughtful reply. The latest person to ask it is ubiquitous right-wing misinformation [...]

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti admits that the fight over the eurozone crisis is opening some old wounds.

I know that Doug Mataconis has already noted the turnout figures, but I like the way Ron Elving put in it in a write-up for NPR: Not only was the Missouri vote a "beauty contest," binding no delegates, but the turnout there was less than 6 percent of the voting-age population — a paltry number [...]

The scam of the US News college rankings and the various ways in which colleges scam said scam rankings.

It was just under a year ago that the last American veteran and the last combat veteran of World War One passed away, and over the weekend that last known veteran died in England at the age of 110: The last veteran of World War I was a waitress, and for 90 years no one [...]

It may be time for Republicans to start worrying about turnout in their primaries. With the exception of the South Carolina primary, voter turnout in all the primary and caucus contests this year has been down from 2008 levels, and yesterday’s numbers were among  the worst of all: Missouri 2008 Turnout —- 588,720 voters 2012 [...]

Take the quiz.

There are some signs that the Obama Administration may be looking for a way out of the controversy it has found itself in with Catholics and other religious groups: The White House may be open to compromising on a new rule that requires religious schools and hospitals to provide employees with access to free birth [...]

Sometimes there was no sugar or Splenda for coffee. On chicken wing night, wings were rationed at six per person.

Last week, Doug Mataconis noted the claim by Mitt Romney that Americans “are the only people on the earth that put our hand over our heart during the playing of the national anthem.” Doug linked to some photographic evidence that contradicted that claim.  For those who prefer moving pictures, I give you Glenn Kessler. Why [...]

What may have been the best chance for Democrats to hold on to Ben Nelson’s Senate seat has apparently slipped away: OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Former Sen. Bob Kerrey said Tuesday he will not run for the Nebraska Senate seat he gave up more than a decade ago, shutting down hopes for a bid both [...]

If the polling is accurate, Rick Santorum may do well in the contests tonight in Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado: Rick Santorum could be headed for a big day in today’s contests in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri. Missouri looks like a probable win for Santorum. He’s at 45% there to 32% for Mitt Romney and 19% [...]

Via the AP:  Roseanne Barr seeks Green Party presidential nod Barr has submitted paperwork to the Green Party for her candidacy. The party’s presidential nominee will be selected at a convention in Baltimore in July. Well, I didn’t see that coming.  Is Barr even famous enough to qualify as a celebrity candidate at this point [...]

Congressman John Fleming of Louisiana had some egg on his face this morning: Meet John Fleming, the unfortunate Republican U.S. Representative from Louisiana who made that wonderful and all-too-common mistake of thinking that an Onion article was real and telling his Facebook followers to read it. Fleming’s Facebook status was posted by Literally Unbelievable, a Tumblr that collects images of Facebookers who [...]

David Frum begins a withering review for The Daily Beast, “Charles Murray’s Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 is an important book that will have large influence. It is unfortunately not a good book.”

For the third year in a row, the Super Bowl was the most-watched television program in history: NEW YORK—For the third consecutive year, the Super Bowl set a record as the most-watched television show in U.S. history. The Nielsen Co. said Monday that an estimated 111.3 million people watched the New York Giants beat the [...]

The NFL and NBC probably thought that hiring a headliner for the halftime show who was born before the Super Bowl even existed would keep the controversy to a minimum, but they were wrong: The NFL and a major television network are apologizing for another Super Bowl halftime show. There was no wardrobe malfunction, nothing [...]

I speculated last week that, notwithstanding the American public’s rather obvious war wariness,  making the public case for military action against Iran wouldn’t be all that difficult given the three decades of antipathy between the United States and the Islamic Republic that started with the Iranian Hostage Crisis. A new poll from The Hill would [...]

The Nevada GOP has finally released the final certified results from Saturday’s caucus: (CNN) – Mitt Romney won Saturday’s Nevada caucuses with his highest portion of a state’s vote yet, just over 50%, according to certified results released Monday by the Nevada Republican Party. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who also won the state’s GOP [...]

As long as I can remember, George Will’s response to any question about the Super Bowl on ABC’s This Week has been some variation on pointing out that baseball season is just around the corner. Given that Will has written several books on the game, and has been a regular presence at Nationals games since [...]

Former Republican Congressman Pete Hoekstra, now a candidate to replace Debbie Stabenow as one of Michigan’s Senators, apparently thinks it’s a good idea to run this ad during the Super Bowl on Michigan’s NBC affiliates: This ad truly has it all. The racially stereotyped Asian woman speaking accented English, the dumb names, and yet the [...]

There’s no question that Mitt Romney won the Nevada Caucuses last night, but that’s about all we know because the most populous county in the state has only turned in about half of its votes so far: The voting ended half a day ago. The networks have called the race. The GOP presidential candidates have [...]

If you can remember back four short weeks ago to just before the Iowa Caucuses, you’ll recall that in late December Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum started coming out of nowhere in Iowa to surpass Newt Gingrich, who had been rising in the polls since early December. Santorum ended up winning the Iowa Caucuses by the [...]

The majority of all rapes in America take place in prison. Which means the majority of rape victims are likely men.

Today’s New York Times is reporting that Sheldon Adelson, who’s given millions of dollars to the pro-Gingrich SuperPAC Winning Our Future, isn’t necessarily wedded to backing the former Speaker forever: LAS VEGAS — Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino executive keeping Newt Gingrich’s presidential hopes alive, has relayed assurances to Mitt Romney that he will provide [...]